Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appeared on CNN's American Morning to announce her new book, "The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs." The new book critiques U.S. foreign policy and imperialist notions of manifest destiny. She is particularly critical of the way that George W. Bush has invoked God in the name of advancing narrow political and foreign policy goals.

In her new book, Madam Secretary Albright writes that the invasion of Iraq may be "the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history." CNN's Miles O'Brien asked Albright to explain her statement (transcript)...

M. O'BRIEN: First of all, one of the important themes of this book is your feeling about how the Iraq situation has played out. And you say this: "The invasion of Iraq and its aftermath may eventually rank among the worst foreign policy disasters in U.S. history." You don't even couch the statement. It's that bad.

ALBRIGHT: I am very troubled by it, because there are so many immediate consequences and then the unintended consequences. First of all, I never believed that there was a connection between Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. But clearly now Iraq has become a major recruiting ground for everybody who hates us. Then there is the real question about what this has done to America's authority --- our moral authority as a result of what happened in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and it has damaged us in terms of what we can do in other parts of the world.

Then I think the biggest unintended consequence is that all of a sudden, Iran is the one that has gained incredible influence in the region. And finally, it has put real question about American power. How do we use it? What are the messages that we're sending with it? So I think Iraq is a mess. That's a diplomatic term of art. And I am very worried about the intended and unintended consequences.

Madeleine Albright explains the damage caused by aligning the "Global War on Terror" or any policy with the idea that God is on America's "side". If you oppose Bush, the War in Iraq, or the way that American power is being used then you are "picking a fight with God.", Albright says. The unbridled use of religion in foreign policy narrows our supporters throughout the world and leads to continued conflict.

I agree with a lot of her comments, but I wanted to vomit when she said that after 9-11 she thought George the idoit was great at unifying the country... (hard to type that word in that sentence), he was not great at anything, not even orchestrating 9-11 (which he and his did). The world and country came together on their own due to the loss, he had nothing to do with it, except causing the deaths!

COMMENT #3 [Permalink]...
The Old Turk
said on 5/4/2006 @ 10:54 am PT...

Bu$h foreign policy,...

Is a crusade back in to the holy land,...

His "God" beats the drums for war,... "God sings the tune,... "Onward Christian Soldier" into his ear while bu$h sleeps.

Bu$h's God is a counterfeit God,.. only a guise for vile Corporatism,... endless plundering of the world for it's natural resources - think petrolium. When
religion is used as a weapon to achieve monetary riches - the God I know,... in no way condones that.
God is not a banking executive or a stockbroker,...
that I am sure.

I'm not sure if you saw the conference or not, but that is EXACTLY what McGovern said! He called Rumsfeld out on his lies, to which Rumsfeld responded with some garbage about how he meant he only "suspected" sites. Then McGovern repeated his exact words... that left Rumsfeld with only one move: accuse McGovern of hating our troops!

"Those brave soldiers get up every day and put on bio suits because they thought Saddam had nerve gas!"

McGovern shot back: That's a non-sequitur, it doesn't matter what they thought, it mattered what you thought.

Albright is right. According to Bush, God has told him to go spread democracy around the world. He thinks it's his duty to have everyone live in a democratic nation. Everyone except the people that he kills to get there. And everyone except his own country.

Right, Fugazi. Lots of Clinton Administration people were for it before the war, but then after the WMD's were not found, they back away and speak out against the war.

All,
Go tell the Kurds that Saddam Hussein never had WMD's. The Kurds have a whole cemetary setup to honor the victims of Hussein's gas attacks on their towns. Men, women, children, babies. Old, young, middle-aged. Supported the rebels or not, Hussein didn't care. He wanted them all dead.

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." - Sec. of State Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." - Madeline Albright, Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator; leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction.... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23, 2003

Mike - get it through your thick head - it was all LIES LIES LIES LIES!!!!!!!

Of course they supported it then - the people who were supposed to know what was going on told them everything they needed to to get the reaction they desired and kept from them everything which showed otherwise. My god get a fcking clue. Read the posts, follow the links, or go away!!!!!!

Everything you posted above we already know!!!!

Changing your mind when presented with new evidence which contradicts what you thought before is not wrong!

To keep asserting a line of thought when all the new evidence proves otherwise is idiocy.

Here's another link to the Video of the Ray McGovern/Rumsfield exchange. Better quality video, but the very end is cut off. Also shows a little more in the beginning - people calling him a war criminal etc. (Once you get past the commercial announcement)

Mike J: I did not hear anyone say Saddam NEVER had WMDs, sure he used them with our help to gas the Kurds. We then got him pretty damn scared and he got rid of them, there are other tools rather than warware. In refernece to Albright "flipping", hell Powell fooled me too, after his speech I reluctantly supported the invasion, took the bait hook, line, sinker and all. Chalk up one brilliant job by Karl Rove, and I hated Bush to start with.

"Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?" asked Ray McGovern, the former analyst.

"I did not lie," shot back Rumsfeld, who waved off security guards ready to remove McGovern from the hall at the Southern Center for International Studies.

With Iraq war support remaining low, it is not unusual for top Bush administration officials to encounter protests and hostile questions. But the outbursts Rumsfeld confronted on Thursday seemed beyond the usual.

Three protesters were escorted away by security as each interrupted Rumsfeld's speech by jumping up and shouting anti-war messages. Throughout the speech, a fourth protester stood up in the middle of the room with his back to Rumsfeld in silent protest.

Rumsfeld also faced tough questions from a woman identifying herself as Patricia Robertson, who said she had lost her son in Iraq. Robertson said she is now raising her grandson and asked whether the government could provide any help.

Rumsfeld referred her to a Web site listing aid organizations.

COMMENT #22 [Permalink]...
The Old Turk
said on 5/4/2006 @ 4:47 pm PT...

Pick up the video: www.loosechange911. This woman doesn't have a track record of always "getting it right" although..doesn't the saying go "a woman has a right to change her mind?" As least she's coming out strong about the twisted use of RELIGION used to forward the wrong-headed moves of the lying murderous Bushista administration. Why don't American's start marching to a different beat. GENOCIDE IS OCCURRING IN DEFAR AFRICA (MASS KILLINGS AND RAPE OF PEOPLE WHO NEED IMMEDIATE PROTECTION).

Leadership Leadership Leadership. Let's stage protests to demand the nothing other than a world peace keeping force in Iraq with a time-table for exiting and send AMERICAN FORCES TO SAVE the slaughter of an entire people. We need to stop taking the BUSHIT. The only thing the Bushit administration can produce is destruction of the environment, continued corruption, and more lies to all people until their removal.

COMMENT #25 [Permalink]...
The Old Turk
said on 5/4/2006 @ 6:32 pm PT...

Yawn.... Mike bringing out the same tired old quotes from "democrats" with a 3 year gap between them means absolutely little. How many quotes did you find between Clinton's december bombing raid and Bush's trumping up of WMDs in Iraq?

The truth of the matter is anything he had was destroyed in the intervening years after the first gulf war. Anything else that wasn't accounted for either deteroriated over the years or was destroyed during the december raid. Face it the sanctions were working.

As for the kurds were you whining about what happened to them when Reagan was helping Saddam? Try to remember the kurds themselves were a terrorist faction that are just as extreme as say for instance al-qaida. They were a threat against Saddam's secular government we knew that he was going to gas them and we helped him do it. So where were you on that one?

Mike J and the republican dictatorship are without the smoke and mirrors these daze. The "wizard of odds" prez is all hat and no cattle when the cover comes off.

Even Ken Mehlman, who has never passed up an opportunity to distort any fact any where is waking up and noticing how Americans are smelling the republican dictatorship:

"RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman met with Republican members of Congress this week to impress upon them just how bad the opinion polls are looking for them, and warning that they face a possible catastrophe in November" (link here, bold added).

Mike J and republican dictators get over it. The people know who you are and they do not like it even a little bit.

19 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Angry conservatives are driving the approval ratings of President Bush and the GOP-led Congress to dismal new lows, according to an AP-Ipsos poll that underscores why Republicans fear an Election Day massacre.

Six months out, the intensity of opposition to Bush and Congress has risen sharply, along with the percentage of Americans who believe the nation is on the wrong track.

The AP-Ipsos poll also suggests that Democratic voters are far more motivated than Republicans. Elections in the middle of a president's term traditionally favor the party whose core supporters are the most energized.

_ Just 33 percent of the public approves of Bush's job performance, the lowest of his presidency. That compares with 36 percent approval in early April. Forty-five percent of self-described conservatives now disapprove of the president.

_ Just one-fourth of the public approves of the job Congress is doing, a new low in AP-Ipsos polling and down 5 percentage points since last month. A whopping 65 percent of conservatives disapprove of Congress.

_ A majority of Americans say they want Democrats rather than Republicans to control Congress (51 percent to 34 percent). That's the largest gap recorded by AP-Ipsos since Bush took office. Even 31 percent of conservatives want Republicans out of power.

_ The souring of the nation's mood has accelerated the past three months, with the percentage of people describing the nation on the wrong track rising 12 points to a new high of 73 percent. Six of 10 conservatives say America is headed in the wrong direction.

Republican strategists said the party stands to lose control of Congress unless the environment changes unexpectedly.

But will Republican poll #s go so low that they can't steal enough votes to win? Not if we don't have Voter Verified Paper Ballots, and the will and ability to count and recount them legally and fairly.
In order for the people's will to be heard and followed, every time there is a federal election we have to have outside-the-precinct polls with the legal clout to back them up.
I think we should also be recruiting hackers to scew the results wildly and absurdly in our favor in any precinct where there is no VVPB; so that we can then force the powers that be to have a fair paper ballot election, or accept, say, a Green winning with 97%...
Come on Dem hackers, where are y'all?

Linking country, race and religion is not an american invention. Try to criticize Israel for its politics with the Palestinians and see how you will be called an anti-semite and Nazi. So, in the future, the USA and Israel might become even better friends - in fact the only friend left to each other - because of this misconception of basic entities. How very sad - to be driven into an Israel-style worldwide isolation by one, just one, foul apple in your barrel of presidents past.